Melody Maker — June & November 1977

Live Review — Glastonbury Farm, Somerset • 22 June 1977

WHEN THE STARS
CAME DOWN TO PLAY

Rick Wakeman’s Symbiosis — the night a mothership gatecrashed Glastonbury and the mud people went feral

By Chris Welch • Photography: film partially destroyed by rain

I have seen many strange things in this job, dear reader, but last night I witnessed the end of civilisation as we know it — and it was fucking glorious.

Glastonbury Farm (or what was left of it after the rain turned the site into a biblical swamp) played host to the single most deranged, beautiful, and spiritually unhinged event in the history of music. Rick Wakeman, clad in his now mud-caked cape, went to war with a visiting alien mothership. And the aliens, bless their cosmic socks, decided to join in.

The night began with the famous five notes. By the end, those five notes had been stretched, shredded, rebuilt, and sent screaming back into the heavens like a lovers’ quarrel between God and the universe.

“The mud people below fell quiet. One solitary soul, still face-down in the sludge, blew one last sad bubble.”

Oil wheel projectors threw liquid galaxies across the sky while a highly suspect smoke machine belched sweet chemical clouds that made grown men taste purple. The rain came down in sheets. The field became a churning sea of brown sludge. And the crowd — God help us — went completely feral.

The moment of contact: Wakeman’s keyboard fortress bathed in alien light, Glastonbury Farm, 22 June 1977. The oil wheel projectors are visible left and right of centre.

SYMBIOSIS

Rick Wakeman • A&M Records • September 1977
Prod: Wakeman & David Hentschel
Side One: Five Notes / Mothership Protocol / Oil Wheel Galaxies / The Mud People
Side Two: Eight Hertz / Cosmic Shrug / Fading Into Rain

★★★★★

Hundreds of naked bodies painted head to toe in mud danced, skipped, and lay face-down blowing happy little mud bubbles like deranged hippos.

At one point a naked lunatic surfed an entire mud tsunami on an electric guitar while feedback howled into the night. I swear I saw him give the mothership the finger as he wiped out.

And through it all, Rick Wakeman — hair plastered to his face, cape heavy with rain and glory — hammered his keyboard fortress like a man trying to conduct the apocalypse. Towering walls of bass bins shook the very earth at 8Hz while the alien ship above pulsed in perfect, terrifying sympathy.

“Rick stood alone on stage, arms raised in solemn salute — a man conducting the apocalypse in a cape full of Somerset rain.”

Then came the moment. The mothership hovered in silence for one final, almost tender moment. The aliens, apparently as wrecked as the rest of us, handed control to the ship’s AI, gave what I can only describe as a cosmic shrug, and went to bed.

As the giant saucer rose slowly into the night, the five notes returned — softer now, almost melancholic — fading into the rain like a dream you’ll never quite remember.

They say the aliens won’t be back for ten thousand years. They got what they came for. Symbiosis indeed.

Chris Welch, Glastonbury Farm, Somewhere in the Mud

Symbiosis — Rick Wakeman

In stores September 1977 • A&M Records • Also available on 8-track cartridge

A&M

Verse • Special Contribution

SYMBIOSIS

(A Report from the Mud)

John Cooper Clarke, Salford’s poet laureate of the gutter, was apparently present at Glastonbury Farm on the night in question. He claims to remember most of it.

I went down Glastonbury way, thought I’d see some hippy shit, instead I saw the bloody end of days and a spaceship doing the twist. There’s Rick Wakeman in a cape like a tent, hair like a burst sofa, soaked to the skin, hammering keyboards like they owe him rent while the bloody mothership plugs itself in. The rain’s pissing down like God’s having a wank, the field’s gone full liquid, a brown sea of sin, naked bastards rolling round, covered in swank, blowing mud bubbles like it’s oxygen.

One mad get’s surfing a wave on a guitar, naked as a newborn, middle finger aloft, feedback screaming like a stabbed film star while the spaceship flashes “we approve of this lot.” Bass bins doing eight hertz, rattling your balls, oil wheels spinning galaxies in the sky, somebody’s rigged up a smoke machine with weedkiller and all, making grown men see God and taste purple when they cry. The aliens are watching, completely off their tits, pointing at the mud surfer going “fucking hell, Dave,” then they shrug, hand the wheel to the ship, and bugger off to bed like well-behaved space ravers. Five notes drift up as the saucer ascends, quieter, sadder, like a lover that’s gone, Rick stands alone, arms raised to his friends, cape dripping mud like the day he was born. Symbiosis they called it. I call it Wednesday.

— John Cooper Clarke, Glastonbury Farm, 1977
(still picking mud out of me ears)